In particular for cooling electronic components that are arranged on circuit boards, a powerful stream of air proceeding approximately parallel to the plane of the circuit board is needed. So-called circuit board fans, such as those shown e.g. by EP 0 666 424 A1, AMRHEIN et al., are used for this. A fan of this kind draws in air by means of its fan wheel in an axial direction, and blows it in a radial direction onto adjacent electronic components in order to cool them.